Edmonton Tourism: The Numbers

In 2021, a resurgent Edmonton managed to become the fastest-growing Canadian metro by gross domestic product. As expected, most of this growth came from the oil industry, which has been the largest employer in Alberta for quite some time now, leading the real-estate sector by a small margin. There’s a sense that tourism could be key to sustained growth in Edmonton, albeit in an unexpected way.

Digital World

First, a bit of history. Recent news dictates that digital media and communications have been two of Edmonton’s most successful areas of work, if only by virtue of the fact that many of the fastest-growing start-ups in the city exist within this space. The Canadian Business website mentions brands like Canada Prime Marketing, Jobber, and Tango Networks as examples of these surging organizations.

Having said all that, there are some areas of the digital world where Alberta lags behind. The Casino Guide website notes that the number of online casinos in Canada has doubled in the last few years, yet Edmonton is still a quiet participant in this niche, though you can click here to read more about this. There are around 25 physical casinos in the wider state, meaning that slots and blackjack gamers aren’t completely left out in the cold.

Hotel Rooms

As mentioned, tourism is important to the metro area but much of the income actually comes from local sports. According to the Edmonton Journal, the money earned from sporting events was 356% higher in 2021 than in 2020, a figure that corresponds to CDN$73 million in extra cash. Oddly enough, these occasions were relatively minor on the world stage, suggesting that sport is an untapped resource in the area.

In no particular order, the most lucrative events for Edmonton in 2021 were the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships, the World Rugby Sevens Series, and a pair of World Cup qualifiers. To give an example of how much capital these events pump into the local economy, the latter soccer games were worth CDN$30 million to Edmonton, largely due to the 12,000 hotel rooms booked, on which you can read more here.

Unemployment

CTV News also offered a glowing appraisal of the tourist trade’s chances this upcoming year, based on the figures for 2021. Air passengers, National Park visits, hotel occupancy and room rates, and food and drink sales all climbed last year. The article can be read here, but an additional piece of good news it mentions involves unemployment in tourism. It fell by 23.9% in 2021.

Inevitably, the National Parks at Banff and Jasper earned the lion’s share of attention from visitors, closely followed by Waterton Lakes. Banff is consistently the most-visited National Park in Canada. Jasper comes second in the rankings with half the number of visitors as its southern counterpart, while Waterton ranks ninth in the country, between Kootenay in British Columbia and Fathom Five in Ontario.

Things have been difficult for the tourism industry in Edmonton recently, but the area seems to be leading the resurrection among Canadian metros.